Aussie politician needs a lesson in math

The indiscriminate shooting of Christopher Lane, a 23-year-old Australian who was living his dream of studying in the U.S. on a baseball scholarship, has repulsed many in his home country and led to calls for Australian tourists to boycott the United States.

"It is another example of murder mayhem on Main Street," former Australian deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer told CNN's Piers Morgan.

"People thinking of going to the USA for business or tourists trips should think carefully about it given the statistical fact you are 15 times more likely to be shot dead in the USA than in Australia per capita per million people." (source)

The truth is, since most Australians are white people, and more than that, they are probably affluent than most white Americans. What does this mean? It means that a visiting Aussie is probably actually less likely to be murdered than the average American white person. And what is the significance of that?

Well, I'm sure more than 90% of gun murders in the United States happen to underprivileged nonwhites in the neighborhoods underprivileged nonwhites live in. Neighborhoods where you're very unlikely to run into an Aussie tourist.

The senseless murder of this Australian student was anomalous. It should not have happened ethically or statistically.